May 16th, 2013 by Heather Lodinsky

This week, I have been working on the front of the Tranquil Tank Top and after nine inches of ribbing at the bottom, I’m ready to tackle the lace and cable part of the top! Before I started the lace, I made sure my ribbing for the front was not only the same length as the back, but that the right side (RS) of my ribbing was the same as the RS of my back ribbing. I had two knit stitches on each side edge of the back ribbing, and I made sure I did the same for the front. Double checking this will allow me to sew side seams that will look seamless when finishing.

The left and right upper sides of the front are written in chart form instead of written instructions in this pattern. When I first glanced at the instructions, I was surprised to see six pages of charts! Then, when I looked a little closer, I saw that there are actually two charts for each of the three sizes. This will make for easier chart reading, rather than having all the sizes included on just one or two charts. I happened to print out all the pages of this pattern before I saw this, so I took out the four pages of charts that I will not need to make my size. That way there will be less chance of confusion as I start the charts. We need to start with the left front, so here is the left front chart of for the Large size: (Note that you can view charts for all sizes by clicking on the pattern link.)

May 9th, 2013 by Heather Lodinsky

Note: This is the third installment of our Spring 2013 Knit-Along. To view previous posts, click here.

This week the weather where I live seems to be right on cue for our Spring Knit Along with sunny, warm days all this last week. Working with Cotton-Ease for this project has been perfect for these days where my windows are open and I can already be found knitting on my porch. This week I finished the back of the Tranquil Tank Top.

The back is the simpler half of this top with only ribbing and stockinette stitch (and a little shaping thrown in.) The lace will appear after we finish the bottom of the front. As I was knitting the back, I remembered a few things that will make sure this top will fit and look great. All of the sizes of this pattern call for the bottom ribbing to measure 9” before starting the stockinette stitch pattern for the upper part of the back.

When I thought I had knit the full 9” of ribbing, I remembered that measuring ribbing can be a little tricky as ribbing should be measured slightly stretched before I measure. What I thought was 9” was actually not even 8 ½” when I measured it slightly stretched. Working a longer piece of ribbing can create this effect, so it is always good to just slightly stretch your ribbing before measuring the length. Take a look at this picture below – I have just stretched the ribbing a little and it measures 9”.

My last row of my ribbing was a wrong side (WS) row, which started with 2 purls and ended with 2 purls. I want to make sure that the ribbings to both my back and my front will have 2 knits on each side of the right side (RS). (You can see this is in the first picture above.) Making sure the ribbings of the front and back are worked the same will make it much easier to sew up the sides for a very nice finish. The stockinette stitch started with a knit row on the RS, where there are 2 knit stitches on each edge of the ribbing. I will keep this in mind when I start the lace part of the front.

After binding off for the armholes, there are some decreases that I can see will be very important for the lace patterns on the front. The back is a good place to try these decreases – especially if you have never done an “ssk” before.

May 6th, 2013 by Zontee

We’ve heard from several of you (thanks for asking, Karen, Kate, and Chelli!) who are looking to make the Tranquil Tank Top larger or smaller than the bust sizes in the pattern. Because of this, I wanted to write up a quick blog post about how you can resize a pattern WITHOUT rewriting the directions.

How? Most of you know that getting the correct gauge is how we make sure that the item we make ends up the size we expect based on the pattern. It’s the reference point that makes sure that you’re on the “same page” as the designer.

We’ve all had that experience at least once in our knitting/crochet lives, where we’ve skipped the gauge swatch and ended up with a project that’s just too small or big. Well, by harnessing our gauge, we can purposely make a project larger or smaller.

May 2nd, 2013 by Heather Lodinsky

Welcome to our 2013 Spring Knit-Along! I am very happy to host this event and hope that many of you will join in and knit along with me. The Tranquil Tank Top is a winner of a project for many reasons! It is a great piece to add to a wardrobe and just as great a project to teach some new knitting techniques. This top is perfect for all-season wear. For spring, it would be great over a cooler-weather top or a sleeveless dress for a little added warmth. For summer, it will be perfect over a camisole top and even for fall and beyond, a perfect layer piece over another longer sleeved top.

April 25th, 2013 by Ashley

Each season we host a crochet- or knit-along, a virtual event in which yarncrafters come together here online to work on one pattern together, share their experiences, and to learn together. There’s no need to sign up! Simply follow along with the blog posts at your own pace as you knit your project, and feel free to share your comments and/or photos as you progress.

The votes are in!

We asked you to vote on what knit project you’d like to make, and you picked our Tranquil Green Tank Top! More than 6,000 of you voted, and we’re so excited to knit-along with you.

To get this knit-along going, this week is about gathering your materials so that we can jump right in next week. This lovely tank top is made in our Vanna’s Choice yarn, a versatile, easy-care, acrylic worsted-weight yarn that comes in a huge assortment of stunning colors. If you’re more in the mood for a cotton blend, Cotton-Ease is a great substitute, and will be light and lovely as the temperatures get warmer. You can also opt for the eco-friendly choice and knit your top in Recycled Cotton, which is a blend of new and recycled materials.

As with any yarn substitution, you’ll also need to figure out how many skeins of the yarn of your choice the pattern will require. Here are the number of balls for our other recommended yarns:

When choosing a size, sometimes it helps to find a top that you like the fit of and measure this garment to help you choose a size.

Starting next week, our KAL host Heather will be posting her progress through the tank top project, with updates coming every Thursday. You’ll know it’s a dedicated KAL blog post when you see our special badge in the upper right-hand corner of the post. Don’t forget to join our Ravelry group for this KAL as well!

In the meantime, please introduce yourself below–let us know who you are, where you’re from, and who you’re making this top for!

April 10th, 2013 by Ashley

The holidays are over and your hand-knitted gifts (yes, even the stragglers) are all done. If you’re like us, you can use some inspiration for a new knitting project. That’s why we’re kicking off our Spring 2013 Knit-Along! Help us choose the winning pattern and we’ll work on it together, step-by-step, throughout the spring.

April 6th, 2012 by Zontee

We’ve had such a great time knitting with you guys during our most recent knit-along. It’s been wonderful to see how you’ve customized your projects! From selecting different yarns to adding stitch patterns and length, each cardi has turned out unique and wonderful.

Here are just a few of the projects that you’ve shared on our website and on Ravelry:

Taking a cue from the raglan eyelet, misscreek added a the same lace detail along the fronts of her cardi in Cotton-Ease.

March 29th, 2012 by Lauren

Hi, everyone. Today I’m going to be talking about the final stages of making your sweater, and how you can keep on adding design elements even after all the knitting is complete! Once you’ve picked up the bands and sewn the sleeve seams and woven in all those ends, there’s still things you can do to change the look of your sweater.

Adding Embellishments

One of my favorite ways to add some interest to a plain stockinette sweater is embroidery. I enjoy doing a method called duplicate stitch, with which you can put pictures on your garment, similar in look to intarsia, but much less fiddly! If you find an intarsia chart you like the look of, you can actually use this method to embroider it on to your sweater. It’s also a great way to use up random scraps of yarn!

With duplicate stitch, you are actually mimicking the look of stockinette stitch. You use a darning needle threaded with yarn in a different color to your base fabric, drawing over the chosen stitches so that they are covered with the different colored strand of yarn. This is a very easy method to add little motifs to your work. Be wary of covering large areas of fabric with this method, however, as it does make the fabric doubly thick in the covered areas.

March 22nd, 2012 by Lauren

Today I’m going to be talking about adding the front bands to your cardi and optional closures. The cardigan in the pattern is designed to be slightly open at the front, but I decided I’d like to have a closed front, which gives me an excuse to spend hours choosing just the right buttons! There are other ways as well to close your cardi — you could use a shawl pin, or if you have some basic sewing skills, sew in a zipper.

First of all, you’ll need to pick up the stitches down the edge of your left front. I decided to do the left front first, as the right front is where the buttonholes traditionally are on women’s garments. To pick up stitches for the left front, start at the neck of the garment and work down towards the hem. When you come to pick up stitches for the right front, you will start at the hem and work to the neck. With the right side facing, put your needle between the first two stitches at the edge of your cardi, so your needle goes through the fabric from front to back. Wind your yarn around the needle, the same way you would to knit a stitch. Now you can pull the loop that you just wound around the needle back through the fabric to the front. If you find it difficult to hook the loop through with a knitting needle, try using a crochet hook. Carry on in this manner until you have the required number of stitches on the needle.

March 15th, 2012 by Lauren

Hi everyone! This week is going to be all about sleeves. In this pattern, the sleeves are put on hold until the body is completed. Then, the sleeve stitches are slipped back on the needle, and the ribbed border is started for short, t-shirt-length sleeves.

Lengthening the Sleeves

I decided that I’d like to do full-length sleeves. Lengthening your sleeves is pretty easy, especially if you’d like a casual looking sleeve with no shaping–just keep working until the sleeve is as long as you’d like it to be. However, I wanted more fitted looking sleeves, so I measured around my upper arm, just below my elbow and then around my wrist. Next I took vertical measurements to get the distance between those 3 points. Then, to work out how many and where my decreases should fall, I just used the same formula from my last post that I used for decreasing for the waist. For the sleeves, you’ll only be decreasing twice in each decrease row, once at each edge, rather than the four decreases across a row for the body. I placed my decreases two stitches in from the edge, to leave the edges nice and neat for seaming later on.